Konohagakure.
Utatane Koharu, with a ball of fire pent up in her chest and nowhere to vent it, stared hard at the suddenly appeared Anbu, and the Anbu sent by Sarutobi Hiruzen looked right back at her without the slightest scruple.
After a few seconds of heavy silence, Utatane Koharu unwillingly shot a glare at Mitarashi Anko and Uchiha Izumi.
"Go!"
With that single command, the few Root shinobi she had brought all withdrew, without continuing to entangle the matter.
This allowed the somewhat wary Uchiha Izumi to breathe a little easier inside.
Although she was ready to clash with Root, there were too many on the Root side, and Mitarashi Anko was injured.
If she clashed with them, defeat would be a hundred percent.
Even so, the indignation in Uchiha Izumi's heart did not dissipate.
She helped Mitarashi Anko to her feet, then, looking at the turning back of Utatane Koharu as she was about to leave, spoke up directly: "Advisor Koharu, to dispatch Root shinobi to wound a fellow villager of Konoha under the absurd pretext of 'not sharing intel with Konoha'—in the eyes of absolute justice, you have already committed an evil deed worthy of judgment! And yet you can't even offer the victim a single apology?"
Apologize?
Utatane Koharu nearly laughed in anger at the word.
She turned around, gazed off toward Uchiha Izumi, her old face dark as she said to the girl: "You've stayed with Uchiha Keizumi too long; it seems you've forgotten where this is. You also seem to have forgotten that Konohagakure is governed by the Will of Fire, not by absolute justice."
"As a shinobi, to hold intel on a rogue and not inform the village—under Konoha's rules, that is a fundamental violation!"
Izumi cut her off and pressed her: "Since you say you're acting according to Konoha's rules, then let me ask you… which rule stipulates that a shinobi must share with you, Utatane Koharu, every piece of intel she knows? Please, Advisor Koharu, explain the clause and its source to me in detail."
"If it were the Third Hokage asking Mitarashi Anko for intel regarding Orochimaru, and Anko refused to tell him, then in the eyes of most in Konoha, that would indeed count as violating Konoha's rules. However…"
"You, Utatane Koharu, are merely a senior advisor. You have only the qualification to offer suggestions to the Hokage. You are not the Hokage!"
Utatane Koharu's fists nearly clenched to stone. Talking to someone brainwashed by absolute justice, she felt she was bound to be driven to her grave by anger!
But she couldn't pick up Izumi's thread, because the so-called rules were nothing more than something she, Utatane Koharu, had made up.
She had thought she could bluff these two juniors—only to find she could not.
"So you insist this old woman should apologize to her?"
The muscles at the corners of Utatane Koharu's mouth were twitching.
Izumi said earnestly, "Not only that! You not only need to apologize to Anko, you also need to be punished by justice! For sending Root shinobi to secretly wound a fellow villager without legitimate cause… you should at least be sentenced to 5 years in prison!"
Utatane Koharu: "???"
Five years?!
As for Mitarashi Anko's so-called "injuries," the most serious was a dislocated left shoulder, but just pushing her shoulder back into place and her worst injury would be as good as new.
And the other scrapes and bruises on Mitarashi Anko—dab a bit of medicine on them and she'd recover in a few days.
Her wretched appearance was most likely because she was exhausted.
This didn't even count as minor injuries, did it?!
Five years—what kind of harsh law was that?!
This was absolute justice?
They were all insane!
Utatane Koharu drew several sharp breaths, her chest rising and falling, lungs nearly exploding with rage at Uchiha Izumi. She gnashed her teeth and said, "This old woman already said it: Konoha is not a Konoha of absolute justice—it is a Konoha of the Will of Fire! Don't force your so-called rules of absolute justice onto Konohagakure! Your so-called absolute justice has no right to arrest this old woman!"
With that...
Utatane Koharu no longer bothered with Izumi. Suppressing her fury, she left without a backward glance, and the group of Root shinobi followed close behind.
Watching their retreating backs, Mitarashi Anko let out a heavy breath. With a wry smile she asked Uchiha Izumi, "Aren't you afraid you've provoked her into losing her reason, that she'll try to kill us both?"
"She's already taken over Root, and Root is the very darkness of Konoha. Someone like her, once worked up, is capable of anything."
Izumi nodded calmly. "Afraid."
"But if out of fear one is unwilling to stand up for others, then what meaning is there in believing in justice? Tachibana Jirō-senpai also said, when Keizumi-senpai was still young and weak, even if he couldn't directly strike at certain evils of the shinobi world, he still found all kinds of ways to make those villains' lives miserable."
Izumi reached to her waist for a scroll. "Besides, if she really tore the mask off, it's not as if I'd have no means of countering her."
It was a "Sealed Fire Method Seal" scroll, within which was sealed a mass of Uchiha Itachi's "Amaterasu flames"!
Uchiha Itachi truly had been put to wasteful use.
…
"There's no need to question me."
Inside the Hokage building, Sarutobi Hiruzen stood with hands clasped behind his back, gazing out at the night.
When he heard the heavy sound of the door pushed open, even before Utatane Koharu could speak, he cut her off directly.
What she had been about to blurt out was forcibly stifled.
Then Sarutobi Hiruzen turned, took a deep breath, and said with some bitterness, "I have already warned you—do your best not to resort to extreme measures. Especially using extreme measures against Keizumi's subordinates will only bring disaster upon yourself."
Utatane Koharu clenched her teeth near to breaking. "The fact you know I tried to take extreme measures—doesn't that mean your people have been watching my every move from start to finish?"
"You also want to wring intel on Orochimaru out of Mitarashi Anko. But you're afraid, aren't you? Uchiha Keizumi has already made you feel fear!"
"Hiruzen, don't forget—you are the Hokage of Konoha. And Uchiha Keizumi is just a shinobi of the Police Force. He's not even the commander of the Police Force!"
Sarutobi Hiruzen frowned and countered, "I do not fear Keizumi. I fear you'll get yourself into trouble."
Utatane Koharu said coldly, "If it is for Konoha's sake, even if it costs my life, I will never regret it."
"Hiruzen, you are truly too indecisive. You disappoint me. Perhaps some of Danzō's judgments of you were right."
...
The next day, Uchiha Fugaku felt that something about the clan members in the Police Force seemed a little off.
He knew that he had already lost all prestige within the Uchiha clan, and that quite a few clansmen were unwilling to call him clan head.
But they should at least address him as "Captain," right? After all, his post in the Police Force was a real one.
Yet when he arrived at the Police Force headquarters today, he found one Police Force shinobi after another giving him only a flat glance before shifting their eyes away, not even interested in exchanging a word with him.
This…
Could it be that something had happened recently, causing his prestige to take another heavy hit?
Harboring such doubts and a heavy heart, Uchiha Fugaku kept his expression completely steady.
He passed by one clansman after another and went alone to the Captain's office of the Police Force.
At the same time, he called in the Police Force shinobi he trusted most.
The man was also a Uchiha jōnin.
He was a veteran of the Police Force, even older than Fugaku.
"Has something happened in the clan lately?" Uchiha Fugaku cut straight to the point and asked the question outright.
His intuition told him that in the past two days something had definitely happened in the Uchiha clan that he did not know about.
The Police Force jōnin hesitated for a moment.
Thinking of how Uchiha Fugaku did usually look after him, he sighed inwardly, then answered Uchiha Fugaku: "Clan Head Fugaku, last night some Police Force shinobi within the Uchiha clan privately opened a clan meeting. There were no Uchiha moderates on site, nor any Uchiha hardliners—only those who want to follow Uchiha Keizumi's Absolute Justice faction."
Hearing this, Fugaku fell silent for a few seconds.
"As expected, and within reason." After a long moment he finally said this, then lifted his head to look at the Police Force jōnin before him: "You must have attended as well, right? Otherwise you wouldn't know this so clearly—they would definitely have kept it from others."
As the other remained silent, Uchiha Fugaku shook his head and said, "I will not blame you for leaning toward Keizumi. Although in my view it is a wrong choice, it is your own right."
"I did attend," the Police Force jōnin admitted.
Uchiha Fugaku kept a stern face and asked again, "What did you all say? Can you tell me? If there are secrets, pick some things that don't count as secrets and tell me."
"And…"
He paused, then continued to ask, "Was this Absolute Justice clan meeting initiated by Keizumi himself?"
The Police Force jōnin shook his head: "We did not actually notify Uchiha Keizumi, because we all know he is extremely busy and likely has no time to attend such a clan meeting."
Fugaku was taken aback.
In other words, without Keizumi actively calling for it, the clansmen within the Uchiha who were willing to believe in Absolute Justice had already taken the initiative to move in the direction of Keizumi's Absolute Justice?
When he called on them to calm down and not be overly hostile to the village, why were they not this proactive then?
Fugaku could not understand.
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